Dave Rattigan
written by Ken Carlson
“It’s not as important for me to be in New York or L.A.” says comedian and writer Dave Rattigan. “There, you’ve got to have agents and managers going to bat for you. Here in Boston, you can make a living. Comedy’s a part of my life, but it’s not my whole life, which is probably different than a lot of comedians we know.”
A lot of people move to New York to take a shot. Some are young and hungry, looking for a way to make it big on their own. Others go along for the ride as their spouse gets an opportunity in the big city spotlight, and they go for it on their own. Many leave, returning to their comfort zone, their home. What they take with them from the experience can range from bitterness to relief. Comedian Dave Rattigan left his tussle with the Big Apple with an empty wallet and an important attribute that has made him a better comic – perspective.
Rattigan discovered that the crowds of New York don’t just apply to subways and Times Square. To someone from out of town, who moved there when his wife landed a plum gig in advertising, but wanted to make his mark in stand-up there without solid connections, the struggle just to get on stage for a few appreciative fans was enough to make him lose confidence in his own abilities. “When I did get on,” says Rattigan, “I wasn’t very good. I had a couple of people, another booker in particular, back here in Boston told me later they were thinking, ‘Oh no, look what the city’s done to him.’ I was doing so many bad rooms, so many shows just in front of other comics. I probably was developing the habits of making the comics laugh, not the people. I was probably more sarcastic, darker, a little meaner.”
Rattigan, now 50, has been doing this for fourteen years. While some equate the world of stand-up with glitz and glamour, he’s been more of a down-to-earth, lunch bucket kind of guy. He’s performed and booked his share of bowling alleys in Maine and Italian restaurants in Lexington to know the score. “I did a food court once,” he recalls. “It was part of TV show. They had us up on platforms on a Saturday. Nobody said to me before, but I kind of figured it out, that there are certain jokes you can’t tell in a food court at noon on a Saturday. I’ve worked at more than one place where the stage was between the dining room and the bar. The people at the bar were one crowd and one dynamic, and the people in the restaurant were another.”
But as usually happens with good guys who persevere, Rattigan has found his place and succeeded, aside from being a freelance writer; as a well liked comic who plays the Northeast, a show producer who books clubs, theatres and private events, and a teacher who helps guide new hopefuls through the
comedy landscape.
“What’s remarkable about Dave,” says Tim McIntire, comedian and manager of Mottley’s Comedy Club, “is how he just slowly and methodically built himself into both a top-notch producer, but also a really funny headliner. It was like you looked up, and there was Dave, just completely on top of his slice of the comedy world. His gigs are great, his students are great, and his act is great...
and he did it without any of the typical comedian drama.”
To understand the big picture of comedy, you have to understand the smaller, day-to-day snapshots. Like any business, you find, over time, the kind of people you want to work with and those you don’t. When Rattigan puts together a show, he uses a simple formula that works, while, as he puts it, the other bookers in Boston, seem to be de-evolving. “They’re putting together the same show I used to put together; four comics that are new, hope they bring people, add a mediocre headliner and charge ten to fifteen bucks a head. I put on much better shows. I always cared about comedy and look for guys that are clean, kind of smart. Other people don’t do that. Another trend in Boston is either not paying the comics, or telling them you’re going to, and stiffing them.”
“I go from Maine to Northampton, Mass and work with a small theatre in Vermont,” says Rattigan. “I’m trying to manage my growth. I don’t just want to be a booker. I want to stay small, do small shows; like me, Tony V (Seinfeld) & Jimmy Dunn (NESN, several commercials). Now, I’ve got my comedy legs under me. But I would’ve quit this altogether if it weren’t for one drunk at one midtown club in New York. He came up to me after my last show in, a cabaret in Manhattan. Tracy Esposito put me up and was very nice. Some drunk came up to me afterwards and said, ‘You’re the funniest fuckin’ comic I’ve ever seen.’ Taking advice from drunks in New York at midnight may not be the smartest thing, but it worked for me.”
“There are too many guys in this business,” says comedian Jimmy Dunn, who appears in an Olympia Sports ad with Rattigan [look up Olympia Sports on Facebook to see the clip], “that are grumpy and just love to complain. When you’re on the same bill with Rattigan, you know it’s going to be a fun night. He appreciates the gig and what we do.”
“The biggest thing I learned from New York,” says Rattigan, “that I liked doing stand-up. People learn from their mistakes. I can’t tell you how frustrated I was in New York. I would be in a club on a Sunday; you’d have four or five people in the audience and a line of twelve comics, none of them getting laughs. None of them were doing material, and what they had sucked. It was intensely frustrating. When I did get the chance, I did get them to laugh, but too often, too many of my gigs were me and fifty comics, with a little timer that would go off when your time was up. It was awful. I liked a lot of those guys. I went back a couple of years later. There were a lot of the same guys doing the same thing. Some of them I see pop up on commercials. Ed Helms was on the circuit when I was there and he’s done real well. He hadn’t been up there long, but he distinguished himself then. He had a nice persona when a lot of New Yorker comics then had a strong persona, no material. It was that, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ thing.”
“Here’s the thing I love about stand-up,” says Rattigan. “Say I’m doing twenty or thirty minutes, maybe forty-five, whatever, like the Rutland show where I killed for 25 minutes in front of 860 people. It’s so much fun! It gives people a chance to hit the reset button. Their lives are stressful. They have real lives, real tragedy, a lot of things going on. You go to a comedy show, you get to forget about your problems, and hopefully, get a different perspective on life. When comedy is done well, that’s what it is. Colin Quinn said this about Nick DiPaolo, ‘Nick tells you the truth. His truth is not necessarily my truth, but it’s the truth.’ That’s what I look for in comedy, guys who tell the truth who connect with the room.”
“I’ve done small community theatres, large theatres,” says Rattigan. “I did a show for 860 people in Rutland last week at a fundraiser. I’m booking a whole different breed than I used to. Sure, I book open mics too during the week to get stage time for my students. It’s a way to get them work. I also teach comedy at North Shore Community College and Northern Essex Community College.”
“Dave is a top notch comedian as well as a producer,” says comedian Juston McKinney. “He understands comedy as well as anyone.
Whether he’s headlining, opening for a national act, or producing a show, the crowd always leaves happy.”
That eye for truth, level of perspective, has helped Rattigan, with an angle in his comedy people can relate to [listen to his CD, Dave Rattigan Thinks He’s Funny], not to mention putting together lineups that work for different crowds and teaching students of stand-up to find their way. Rattigan’s path to teaching comedy, came about in the same patient, unassuming way he’s moved up in stand-up.
“I got a job at a college as a P.R. guy,” says Rattigan. “They asked me to teach writing. They always need Comp 1 instructors. Then they asked about a comedy class. I had my reservations. I figured you should be at a certain level as a comedian before you do that. But I was getting better. I figured out that I was probably never going to famous, never going to be really successful as a comedian, but I liked it. I liked doing it. My goals changed and I got better.”
“It [Teaching] helps you as a comedian because it brings you back to your fundamentals,” says Rattigan. “It helps you understand. I’ve gotten a lot better since New York. A lot of guys do material they think other people will laugh at. Now I do the joke I think is funny. Maybe I’ll think it’s hilarious and they won’t laugh, but if they do, I know that I’ve got something really good, more unique. It makes me a better comic. When I started, you did whatever you wanted to do; street jokes, whatever. Now I’m more likely to say, ‘Don’t tell that joke. Why? Because it sucks.’ I’m honest with them, especially if it’s hackey. Sometimes a student will tell a shitty joke and say, well, it gets the biggest laughs. It gets the biggest laughs because you’re playing shitty rooms! You need a better punch line than that if you ever hope to headline. That’s another thing you learn to recognize.”
His students are a cross-section of various ages and backgrounds with one thing in common. “They’re all a little bit scared to death,” says Rattigan. “You figure that anybody in a comedy class has stand-up as something they’ve wanted to do for a long time. They’ve screwed up the courage to try it since they found it in the college catalog. There’s a lot of fear. For some of them, it’s different. One of the funniest students I had was a 64 year-old woman. She said, ‘I take classes. It was either this or Basketweaving.’ She got up there, had a persona, real jokes, and crushed!”
Boston. There are plenty of people who prefer cities of that size over larger ones because they’re easier to manage, have less stress. In stand-up, it’s known as a great place to develop, but if you want to get seen by the industry, you have to go elsewhere.
“Somebody explained it to me like this,” says Rattigan. “85% of the industry is in L.A., 12% is in New York. There might be another percent floating around. Would comics do better if they were on VH1 to comment on the week that was or hairstyles of the 1970’s? I don’t know. Those are the opportunities you can get in New York or LA.”
Like the other markets, the stand-up world in Boston, like the economy, is down. “Around here,” says Rattigan, “Saturdays are still good, Fridays less so. What’s going up is fundraisers. There’s more of a need, so if you can fill that need, it’s good. Everyone needs money, so it’s good for me. My company does clean, high quality fundraisers. If you’re going to charge 20, 25 or 35 dollars for a ticket, you have to put together a pretty good show, even if it’s for a good cause. Places that I do one nighters, I don’t even touch Fridays. The pre-solds, marquee celebrity shows still do well. People want to see celebrities. But there are fewer corporate shows, clubs are down, a lot of good comics have open books.”
“With my company, if you hire my guys, they’re not jerks or drunks,” he continues. “They’re going to show up. They’re not going to be late. They’re going to tip your waitress. It’s not like they don’t have a map, or spilled their drugs, or whatever they used to do. A lot of comics have problems getting through their daily lives, then they show up that way at the gig. When I first started doing gigs, they’d say, ‘Keep it clean,’ and I’d say, ‘Sure, I don’t swear.’ But keeping it clean means a lot more than not swearing. Stay away from certain topics. It’s about being appropriate. It’s tough to make a good incest joke these days. It might work in a club, but not in a corporate show.”
“I’ve got a wife, a child, and a life,” Rattigan reflects. “When we came back from New York, I was in a pretty deep financial hole. We dug out of it, bought a house, had a kid. I worked like hell, between the three careers, comedy, teaching and writing. My parents live in the town I live in. My wife’s brother and sister live in the next town over. That’s important to me. Comedy’s important too, but they’re not looking for forty or fifty year olds. One of the most honest things somebody said to me was when a booker in New York my age said, “I’m not going to put you on at my club. Right now when they call for a white forty year old, they get me. If I book you and you do well, it will be you or me.” I found that refreshing. In Boston, they’ll do the same thing, but they don’t tell you. They just pat you on the back and say how great they are.”
For more on Dave, visit DaveRattigan.com